As several of our readers pointed out in the latest financial report from Honda, The United States, and North America as a whole, represent just a very small portion of Big Red’s total volume of motorcycle sales. For Honda’s 2011 fiscal year, North America sold a whopping 1.6% of the company’s total motorcycle inventory, while Asia accounted for nearly 79% of Honda’s total sales.

While Honda and other motorcycle manufacturers certainly makes better margins on the units they sell in North America and in Europe, the volume opportunities abroad in emerging markets are far more lucrative for OEMs.

With 1.2 billion people (17% of the global population) and still growing, India is the shining star in emerging markets, so it should come as no surprise that Honda is forecasting that 30% of its business will come from India by 2020, as the Japanese company further increases its presence in Asian markets.

This forecast comes from Keita Maramatsu, President of Honda’s Indian business unit, during the unveiling of the Honda Dream Yuga (India by far has the best bike names). Parting ways with Hero MotoCorp last year, Honda has decided that now is the time to go it alone in the Indian market, after 26 years of jointly-operating the Honda Hero brand in India.

With India being the second-largest motorcycle market internationally, Honda is well on its way to securing 20% of the market share in the critical country, making it the largest foreign motorcycle maker in India.

It’ll be hard for Americans to scream that we are #1 when we won’t have anything of merit to crow about.

Damo

@Tom

Not sure how your comment has anything to do with this story or the world as a whole.

Tom

Thanks for letting everyone know that you don’t understand global economics or how the sun is setting on US dominance.

Tom

@Tom

Thanks for letting everyone know you are a pretentious douche. See, making generalizations is easy.

First off lack of motorcycle sales doesn’t reflect some massive trend in the global market. Secondly only someone with a complete lack of product/demand would expect the US to account for huge amounts of Honda’s business because, A) The US buys almost zero scooters and small displacement bikes, B) most of the bikes we buy have the smallest profit margins.

So yes I understand global motorcycle economics, at least.

Gary

Interesting that when Hero was looking for a new partner they chose tiny, innovative, American EBR. Maybe the US does have something to offer.